u/embervanefiction

All it takes is one inconsiderate entitled jerk to ruin a plane ride. Imagine getting on a plane and being fortunate enough that there are no babies there.

You're trying to fall asleep but the person behind you decides a plane is the perfect place to do breathing exercises loud enough that literally the whole flight can hear you. You look back to see them and they continue revving the engine like dude hello there are other people here. Unbelievable.

Before any of you come at me with 'it could be medical you're the entitled one', I seriously don't think it was. Where I come from, old people have a habit of doing this randomly.

I'm writing on Wattpad. I'm fairly new there, but I have some things written down to completion.

How do you promote your work? Instagram? Reddit? I'm already out of options lol.

I've written some short stories and I'm posting a complete work kind of consistently but there's no real readers so far.

Thanks!

Does every line have to drive the plot? Can there be some beats that are there only for emotions?

I find it hard to write characters who are emotionally closed off. Is it going to be an issue if something happens in my story but it was only there because I wanted some emotional stuff in there?

I would really hate it if someone read it one day and said 'why even was that scene included? It did nothing at all'.

Hi! Can anyone help me? I can't find American Housewife anywhere. Google says it's on prime, but prime doesn't show it when I look for it.

Thanks!

I'm writing a multi first person pov book. There is a big backstory that some other character is explaining to the MMC. From what I understand, it's okay to give the reader the backstory in the form of back and forth dialogue if it's a small story, but this is a big backstory. I feel like it'll get irritating if I can't immerse the reader into that environment considering I've used the back and forth dialogue thing once already.

That said, is it an issue if I go into the past in third person pov for one chapter to tell what happened in the past and start with the MMC's pov again when it's done?

So this happened last night. I was reading 'til one. Sleep in my eyes. My bones tired. Exhausted out of my mind. No way was I going to wake up at six.

Now, let me tell you, I'm less than 3 months away from the biggest exam of my life. I stayed up reading my current one anyway.

Books really are the best.

If I am 22 years old, how do I write a 25 or a 27 year old? It's hard to imagine what goes on in their head. I have given both my characters wildly different and busy lives but because of the fantasy element in my story, they're both currently away from their daily exhaustion.

The plot allows them to be free and independent. I want banter between them. Reason being, they met in an online class (inspired from Covid, though in their world, it's a war quarantining them). They've never actually met.

Now, 5 years later, when they meet, we know the clock resumes, it doesn't reset. They're still talking like they used to.

What concerns me is that I'll be told they sound like kids, but I've come to realise that after a certain age, all that changes is your thought process and how you perceive things, not your whole personality. They were already adults when they started talking.

Is this going to be an issue?

I write in the first person. Once I'm done with a scene, I re-read it. In three out of four scenes, at one glance, I'll see about 7-8 'I's.

If I'm not missing anything, it's a thing to avoid. How do I find something that'll replace the pronoun and still hold the sentence's integrity?

Edit: Thank you for making me realise it is definitely not something to avoid. Changing the rhythm does all the work.

What ever happened to 'show don't tell'? Five chapters in and I couldn't stand the constant stream of 'I noticed', 'I saw', 'I could see', etc.

The plot was fine (predictable, too), but I'm a strong advocate of good narratives. The only reason I didn't DNF was because the book was a present.

I don't know why some authors I've seen can't take off but this particular one did.

I just saw something insane. A user on Substack had around 800 subs not more than 5 days ago. They're the usual 'dear substack' type user. Today, they have 1k+ subs.

Is that a bot? Or am I failing to understand how social media works now?

This is infuriating. I've seen accounts that write beautiful stuff getting no attention.

What are these new 300 subs looking for from this user? The usual low effort notes of 'like=like', 'sub=sub'?

I don't understand any of this.

Edit: This is just a question. I'm not envious of anyone. I'm trying to see the mechanics here. Don't come at me with 'you're envious of others'. Thank you.

I am around 45 pages into my WIP. It's 13.6k words.(The page estimate could vary. I checked it in 'print layout' on Google docs).

The story is really taking off at this point. I've done the world building. I've laid the groundwork for foreshadowing. I'll try to make it hilarious even up to this point so that the reader doesn't get bored.

Small things have happened. It's not just people sitting around thinking. I'll probably edit out a few parts to bring it down to 40 pages.

That said, is 45 pages too long?

I've been writing on and off for 5 years. I have finished a book. A duology in progress.

First came trad publishing. Way too complicated at first. After hours of research, it's pretty clear that unless you have an agent or an already established reader base, it's just not going to work.

I got excited when I saw a lot of platforms where people read and authors make money later if they can. Then I find out that there's some places where people steal your work and sell it for pennies elsewhere. The platform does nothing to help. That option is out.

Then I remove money from the equation. I just want readers. Apparently, that's just as hard. It's kind of a rich get richer poor get poorer situation on these platforms.

I know you'll face resistance anywhere you go. It's just frustrating. It makes me wish I'd never thought of publishing.

I'm writing a book. I stumble on this particular thing a lot. Is it okay to let my characters decide something irrationally? I think way too much because I want to avoid any plot holes and "easy-outs".

Does a character saying 'I'll come with you' instead of 'Just take this vial of my blood since that's all you need' come across as a pathetic attempt to move the plot forward? I doubt a reader will think that much since I'm the kind that just goes along with whatever the author says. I don't pick plots apart. I'm just worried that others do.

Yes, it's true that if the person goes with this character then it'll be two people on this trip they take later instead of just one. Nothing else changes. There's romance but not until very late and that definitely isn't my whole plot. I mean there's also some uncertainty that one of them will die in a year (that's related to the blood thing. Someone wants this person's blood) and we don't know which but looking from a practical person's pov, it just seems weird while the author side of me wants to write this, the practical side just says it's a useless plot.

So I'm reading Immortal Consequences by I.V. Marie right now, and something this author has done very well is embedding information into dialogue instead of info dumping like an amature.

I love that.

What this also made me realise that this quality of her work only stood out to me because I write as well. Earlier, I used to be able to immerse myself completely in any book. Since I've picked up the habit of writing, that particular escape is harder to find.

Did this happen to you too?

I'm editing my manuscript and I'm using Grammarly for a rough check. I'm seeing a lot of punctuation and phrasing and other errors.

Is there a way to fix all the punctuation related edits in a click? There's like a thousand commas I missed apparently.

Does it happen with others too? I mean, I write female pov just as easily but male pov remains my default choice when writing. I hadn't even thought about it until when I saw most female authors using woman pov. They use male pov so sparingly. I don't. Admittedly, the pov I write comes out like the MMC is in touch with his emotions but he is practical where he has to be.

Edit: You guys are really supportive thank you so much!

Like the title says, do they mean it? I've come across a ton of notes saying the exact same thing: dear substack (and then they launch into how they're starving to read a new author's work).

People who reply to these notes genuinely hope that their work will get attention. It rarely does. I understand that no one is obligated to read something just because they were free for five minutes and asked for something to read. But why say 'new writers'? It's just that particular thing that bothers me a little.

Hey guys. I need some advice as to how to begin putting my work out there. I've heard alot about this platform and I'm not exactly sure what it looks like to work with it.

I'll do my own research but are there some things I need to be careful of?

For context, I have a full book written and I'm considering traditional publishing but it's hard to get picked up especially when you're a new author.

Any advice is appreciated.